Skip to main content.

Five Amazing Never Before Seen Incredibly Unique and Astoundingly Cool Revenue Blogging Tips , 1 Revenue Blogging Truism and 1 Traffic Increasing Trick

August 27th, 2007 - Uncategorized
Improve your Life, Time, Money and Health with Blogging!

Giving your images good filenames and alternative text will help your page show up in image searches as well. This image shows you how to improve your life, use your time better, increase your money and increase your health with a blog!

Okay, so you want to make lots of money but you’re too lazy to do any work for it. Welcome to Blogging! It may take you years, even decades, to make the equivalent of a minimum wage job, yet millions of people continue to treat their blog like the golden goose at the end of the rainbow where there’s a big X in the sand.

As I’ve written before, I am making money with blogging and the riches are totally astounding! I could live in Mexico for a full day and a half on what I make in a typical day of blogging. I’m an expert blogger who has all the same qualifications of all those other expert blogging bloggers: I write a blog!

And because I’m so kind and big-hearted and need something nice to mention when I take the stand next month, I’ve decided to give you some blogging tips right from my own experience. You see, I really just want to help YOU make money. I really do. Really. Stop laughing.

To prove to you that I actually want to help you I’ve decided to take time out of my busy, busy daytime television watching schedule to give you five tips on how to increase traffic and revenue to your blog. I suggest you memorize these tips or, at the very least, get them tattooed on your leg upside down so you can look down and read them any time you want for the rest of your life.

Rule #1 – Be wordy: Why use three simple words like “write more words” when you can take a simple concept and fill it full of keywords that might help your post end up in a random search just like a lawyer might use if he was researching mesothelioma, Viagra or Vioxx. I’m always amazed at what sort of keywords people use to get to my site. I actually blogged about all the weird things that bring people here when I wrote about some of the strange things that people are searching for on the internet. In addition to writing more, you need to also break those words up over multiple posts. Search engines love sites with more posts over sites with fewer posts. The more posts you have, the more your writing will show up in search results. Really. Really really.

Rule #2 – Link To Yourself: As your blog grows you’ll want to begin referencing back to older articles and things you’ve written in the past. This will drive readers deeper into your site and will essentially create a “web” of information or text for visitors to get “caught up” in. I’m not talking about “trapping” people with a ton of links, all going to your own site, but valid references with good link words are always a good idea. See the link in Rule #1 as a legitimate example of this. Some search engines will now pick up “strange things that people are searching for on the internet” and associate it with the page I linked to. If I had five posts, all linking to that same page with similar text, then that page may raise in a list of “strange things people search for” on some search engines listings.

Rule #3 – Your Domain Name Matters: This is especially true when you’re just starting out. Let’s say I’m a butcher and I have a blog all about selling meat. I choose the domain name “HamMerchant.com” because it sounds kind of cute. I guarantee that you’re going to get a fairly large percentage of people searching the internet for the word “hammer” or for the word “chant.” And no matter how much you write about pork butt and bull tongues, you’re going to get people who stumble across your site looking for a better way to bang in nails or a better way to sing like a monk. When you choose a domain name try to be specific and try to use words that describe your content to some degree. Other examples can be found in words that have multiple meanings. Is “Greenbank.com” about gardening on a river or about a financial institution that has money? Is “staffbuilder.com” about making walking sticks or hiring the right people? As your site grows you domain name will matter less (Amazon.com is now about a river and BoingBoing.net does not sell springs) but initially you might need every bit of help you can get.

Rule #4 – Comment On Other Blogs: I don’t do a very good job with this at all. I lately haven’t been able to find the time to write and comment on my own blogs due to a number of lifestyle changes. But I’m getting back in the swing of things and beginning to not only get back to a regular writing schedule, but also a regular reading and commenting schedule. When you leave a comment you link back to your own site, but your also all legitimacy and have a chance to write something somewhat intelligent in a forum other than your own blog. Don’t just leave stupid comments like “Hi, I like your site, please visit mine!” if you want to be considered anymore than just some random spammer. Try to leave intelligent and appropriate comments. Most blogger comments are moderated by a real person these days, so don’t expect to be able to get away with comment spamming.

Rule #5 – Donate Your Words: There are lots and lots and lots and lots of sites that specialize in giving away content to other blogs for free. Think about Ezine Articles and ArticleCity and the like. Sure, using someone else’s content that can be found in 100 different places won’t turn your blog into an overnight success, but having someone else use your content (especially if they keep the plug back to you) will really increase your traffic. I usually try to do this when I’m starting a blog and I find it generates a fair amount of interest and traffic pretty quickly for a short period. I’ve also found that you have to continually submit things to really keep that traffic going. Occasionally I’ll see a spike in traffic for a week or so because some blog somewhere picked up one of my old “donated” articles. Here’s the cool part: you can still publish your post first and then submit it later. So there’s no reason why you can’t go trolling through some of your old posts that you’ve long forgotten and submit them.

You may have guessed the blogging truism by now that runs through most of these: Search Engines are Stupid. I don’t care how much you love Google and how much you worship the ground their engineers walk on, it’s still a search engine and it still makes a lot of mistakes. If I search engine wasn’t stupid it would only give you the three or four pages that actually contain the information you’re looking for, instead of 10,000,000 pages that might contain the information you’re looking for. I rarely find exactly what I need on the very first listed item of Google. Do I often find it in the first few pages? Yes, but that requires human interaction to sift through the crap that Google (or any other search engine) produces. So the full truism is this:

Search Engines are Stupid, Humans are Smarter.
This means that you can’t just seed your blog with nonsense and keywords and hope to make a million bucks. Once you get someone’s attention with a stupid search engine, you have to keep them reading and at your site with your smart writing. You have to offer something useful or something of value to the reader, or the reader will leave.

And the one traffic increasing trick? Images! When I include silly clip art images in my revenue generating blog posts (as many, many people do) I make sure to give them filenames, alternative text and even captions that all have to do with what I’m writing about. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone off looking for something and found my own images popping up.

You’re welcome.

4 Comments » | Email Link

A Congratulations to Chinese Toymakers

August 17th, 2007 - Uncategorized
Made in China

Here we see the typical Chinese attention to detail. This is a close-up of the back of a razor-sharp plastic toy shovel my infant son likes to play with.

When my wife and I heard about all the latest toy recalls due to shoddy and unsafe manufacturing practices used in Chinese factories, we did what all good American parents did: ran around the house in hysterics, grabbing all the toys that could have been made anywhere near Southeast Asia, threw them out on the front lawn, doused them with kerosene and immediately torched them until they were nothing but a pile of dirty, black ashes which we gathered into a coffee can and put on the first FedEx plane back to China.

At that moment we decided to give our infant son only toys that were manufactured in the good ol’ ethical United States of America where we have strict safety laws to protect products from harming consumers.

Right now my infant son is chewing on a Marlboro Red hard pack and rolling around a pint of Jim Beam. Ahh, America! And while I’m ripping the cellophane off his box of cigs I realize something important:

We should be congratulating these Chinese toy companies that are making thousands of products with lead paint and then selling them to Americans!

“But why?!?” I hear you ask incredulously. Because the Chinese have finally figured out how capitalism really works:

1. Make a cheap product that undersells everyone else, putting all your competition out of business.
2. As your competition dwindles, lower your quality to the point where you’re actually insulting or harming the customers that put you on top.
3. When you get caught you should apologize profusely and promise it will never ever happen again.
4. Do it all again.

It’s sort of like the “Circle of Life” from Disney’s The Lion King, except this involves Dora the Explorer, Thomas the Train Engine, a few buckets of lead paint and millions of Chinese people working for the equivalent of slave wages.

This capitalistic cycle has worked for Wal-Mart for all these years, so why wouldn’t it work for manufacturing companies in China? Wal-Mart moves into a town, undersells all the other stores and forces them to close. Then, when Wal-Mart is the only store left, they begin treating their employees like slaves, their customers like dogs and and their products like something Kathy Lee Gifford would endorse. Every so often Wal-Mart is caught and someone with an Alabamanian accent apologizes on TV and announces a new sale. Everything goes back to normal until they’re caught again.

Now that the Chinese have learned about this little trick they’ve started using it in just about everything they make. From deadly dog food to toxic toothpaste to poison covered baby toys, you have to admit that the Chinese are quick studies. I’m worried, however, that they’ll soon run out of ways to make ordinary things deadly. If that happens then their economy collapses and causes world-wide economic mayhem.

So in the the interest of keeping the world economy thriving with new Chinese exported products, here are some other items that are made in China and how they can be made more deadly:

Chopsticks: Give them a quick rinse down with cyanide before packaging to reduce germs.

Electronic Equipment: Sprinkle gunpowder over all the circuit boards and power supply before final assembly to make sure everything slides together easily.

Dog food: Pour lead paint into food instead of melamine for added coloring.

Baby Toys: Cover them with melamine instead of lead paint (gotta mix it up sometimes!).

Clothing: Weave asbestos into all the fabrics for “durability.”

American Flags: Use radioactive dye for that “I’m so proud of America that my flag glows!” look.

We can only hope the Chinese continue to produce products with the same low-cost profiteering methods that they have in the past. I mean, how else will we be able to afford replacing all those baby toys we just threw away?

12 Comments » | Email Link

My Favorite New City of Heroes Superheroes

August 13th, 2007 - Uncategorized

From time to time I plunk down a few bucks and renew my account to City of Heroes, one of the only online games I’ve ever really gotten into.  One of the many ways you can burn up oodles of time is using the amazingly flexible super hero building tool to create all sorts of justice seeking Spandex-wearing wonders.  Most of the heroes you see have outrageous powers and costumes, so I decided to make some “less traditional” superheroes with the building tool.

Here’s what I came up with:


Name:
Angry Postal Worker

Origin:
Torn straight from the headlines, this superhero spends his day delivering the mail and his nights delivery vigilante justice. Once a mild-mannered kid out of college, Richard Emelio Stamp III started delivering the mail and quickly went insane trying to keep up with the ever increasing price of stamps while trying explain to customers the intricacies of first class vs. priority mail.

Powers:
Really Big Gun
Instant Zip-Code Recognition

Catch Phrases:
“I’m going to STAMP you out!”
“Postage DUE!”
“How do you like THIS special delivery?!”

City of Heroes - Angry Postal Worker
Angry Postal Worker


Name:
Flame Retarded

Origin:
C’mon. With a name like ‘Flame Retarded’ does he even need an origin?

Powers:
Fire Blasts
Able to Ride the Short Bus
Can Be Obnoxious and Get Away With It

Catch Phrases:

“My Mom says I’m special!”
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Hot! Hot! Hot!”

City of Heroes - Flame Retarded
Flame Retarded


Name:
Lawyer With No Pants

Origin:
Ace Hot-Shot Lawyer Rich McNulty graduated at the top of his class at Yale and immediately started his own law firm. He started it so immediately that he actually forgot to put on pants the first morning and he’s been winning big cases ever since. Not one to tempt fate, he’s continued to not wear pants and fight for truth, justice, and the right to wear tighty whities (see red arrow for more information).

Powers:
Kung Fu Punch
Ability to speak Legalease

Catch Phrases:
“Quid Pro Ipso Facto Calamari!”
“Egad! I have no pants!”

City of Heroes - Lawyer with No Pants
Lawyer With No Pants


Name:
Republican Senator

Origin:
Once in the majority now in the minority, southern Republican Senator Cornelius Kissabaybee spends his time screaming about the sins of the country while teaching the country new sins.

Powers:
Super Justification
Blessing
Amazing Persuasion Abilities with anyone with a Southern Accent

Catch Phrases:
“God told me to do this.”
“Damn Liberal Pinkos.”
“Jesus Would Vote Republican.”

City of Heroes - Republican Senator
Republican Senator

I feel safer already with these noble heroes patrolling our streets.

2 Comments » | Email Link

« Previous Entries  Next Page »